State v. Steven Tyrone Bratchett, 2020AP1347-Cr, 11/9/21, District 1, (not recommended for publication), case activity (including briefs) A jury convicted Bratchett of burglary, armed robbery, and attempted 3rd-degree sexual assault. Bratchett argued and lost 6 issues on appeal. The court of appeals split over two of them, and they are focus of this post. The… Read more
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State v. P.G., 2021AP1231, 2021AP1232, & 2021AP1233, District 1, 11/2/21 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity P.G.’s challenges the sufficiency of the TPR petitions against him and claims the COVID epidemic affected his ability to meet the conditions of return. His arguments are in vain. First, he argues a TPR petition must met the… Read more
Attorney Keith Findley and colleagues have a new paper out. They examined cases in the postconviction context to determine how often prosecutors use their plea-bargaining power to preserve a conviction even when the conviction appears deeply flawed and the chances that the defendant is innocent are high. Guess what they found . . … Read more
Given all the recent changes on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, SCOWstats has run a new Linguistic Inquiry Word Count software analysis of their opinions, including those from most of the new justices. It scores opinions on things like analytical thinking, speaking with clout, and so forth. One interesting finding: Chief Justice Ziegler uses emotional words–negative… Read more
This week SCOTUS granted review on two cases involving Native American sovereignty. It also issued two summary rulings (without briefing or argument) that reversed federal appeals court decisions that had denied qualified immunity to police officers accused of using excessive force. In other words, SCOTUS summarily ruled for the police. Read more here… Read more
That is the subject of today’s Immigration Professors’ blog post, which reports that the 2nd Circuit recently addressed the issue and links to a lengthy law306.com article highlighting a split among the circuits. Apparently, the 4th, 5th, and 8th Circuits hold that undocumented immigrants are not included in “the people” of the Second Amendment… Read more
That’s what Berkeley, California did. Read about the measure and its impact in this article from The Atlantic… Read more
City of Port Washington v. Sandra J. Koziol, 2021AP449-450-FT, 10/6/21, District 2 (1-judge opinion; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs) Each year, Wisconsin’s municipal courts resolve close to half of a million cases, including traffic offenses, OWIs, and other quasi-criminal matters. See data here. A party aggrieved by a municipal court judgment has a… Read more
